Vacarro then leaves the farm, telling Baby Doll he will be back the following day with more cotton. The police arrive, and Archie is arrested when Vacarro presents them with the affidavit. After Vacarro confronts Archie with the affidavit, Archie retrieves his shotgun and chases Vacarro outside while Baby Doll calls the police. He then takes a nap in Baby Doll's crib, and is invited for supper at Baby Doll's request as a storm approaches.Īrchie, drunk and jealous of Baby Doll's romantic interest in Vacarro, angrily tells Aunt Rose she needs to move out of the house Vacarro immediately offers to let her live with him as his cook, and Baby Doll and he flirt with one another and taunt Archie.
Vacarro comforts Baby Doll, and after becoming friendly, Vacarro forces her to sign an affidavit admitting Archie's guilt. When Vacarro outright accuses Archie of burning down his gin, Baby Doll goes to find Archie, but he slaps her in the face and leaves for town to purchase new parts for his gin. Vacarro explicitly inquires about Archie's whereabouts the night before and makes sexual advances toward her. Suspecting Archie as the arsonist, Vacarro visits the farm the following day with truckloads of cotton, offering to pay Archie Lee to gin for him.Īrchie asks Baby Doll to entertain Vacarro while he supervises the work, and the two spend the day together. Archie retaliates by burning down Vacarro's gin that night. Archie's competitor, a Sicilian American named Silva Vacarro-who owns a newer and more modern cotton gin-has taken away all of Archie's business. Baby Doll's senile Aunt Rose Comfort lives in the house, as well, much to Archie's chagrin.Īfter defaulting on payments to a furniture-leasing company due to his failing cotton gin, virtually all the furniture in the house is repossessed, and Baby Doll threatens to leave. In the meantime, she sleeps in a crib, because the only other bedroom furniture in the house is the bed in which Archie sleeps Archie, an alcoholic, spies on her through a hole in a wall. Archie Lee impatiently waits for her 20th birthday, when, by prior agreement with her now-deceased father, the marriage can finally be consummated. In the Mississippi Delta, bigoted, middle-aged cotton gin owner Archie Lee Meighan has been married to pretty, naïve 19-year-old "Baby Doll" Meighan for two years. Additionally, it has been named by film scholars as one of the most notorious films of the 1950s, and The New York Times included it in their Guide to the Best 1,000 Movies Ever Made.
Despite moral objections to the film, it was largely well-received by critics, and earned numerous accolades Kazan won the Golden Globe for Best Director and the film was nominated for four other Golden Globe awards, as well as four Academy Awards and four BAFTA Awards, with Wallach taking the BAFTA prize for Most Promising Newcomer.Ĭulturally, the film has been credited with originating the name and popularity of the babydoll nightgown, which derives from the costume worn by Baker's character. An effort to ban the film was carried out by the Roman Catholic advocacy group National Legion of Decency, though responses to the group's condemnation of the film were varied among Catholic laity and other religious institutions. It provoked significant controversy, largely due to its implied sexual themes. The plot focuses on a feud between two rival cotton gin owners in rural Mississippi after one of the men commits arson against the other's gin, the owner retaliates by attempting to seduce the arsonist's 19-year-old virgin bride with the hopes of receiving an admission by her of her husband's guilt.įilmed in Mississippi in late 1955, Baby Doll was released in December 1956.
Baby doll song video full#
It was produced by Kazan and Tennessee Williams, and adapted by Williams from his own one-act play 27 Wagons Full of Cotton (1955). Baby Doll is a 1956 American dramatic black comedy film directed by Elia Kazan, and starring Carroll Baker, Karl Malden, and Eli Wallach.
0 kommentar(er)
